Analysis of Indonesian Forest and Land Fire Controlling Operational Policies. Case Study: Siak Regency, Riau Province

Abstract

Indonesia has been struggling with forest and land fires for decades due to its large, multi-dimensional impacts. While less hotspots in 2016 were due to the La Nina, Indonesia has managed to reduce the hotspots in normal condition in 2017. However, there were indications that some of the policies were outside of the legal jurisdiction, e.g. to involve institutions out of their legal roles in fire controlling operations. Thus, this paper qualitatively discussed the analysis of fire controlling policy in Indonesia with Siak Regency as the case study. Data collection used semi-structured interviews with key informants from related agencies and experts, as well as supported by literatures. Meanwhile, policy and actor analysis were used to approach the issue. The findings revealed that the lack of resources and personnel has forced some actors to dominate. In this case, the establishment of complementary regulations should accommodate and legalised some policy implementers who did not have the ‘rights’ to involve in the forest and land fire reducing programme.